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Invisible Character Remover: Zero-Width Spaces and NBSP

This free tool finds hidden characters in pasted text, such as zero-width spaces, soft hyphens and direction marks, and removes them. It also turns non-breaking and other odd spaces into normal spaces.

By Debmedia Technologies LLP · Kolkata, India · Updated

What Is It and When Do You Need It?

Hidden characters are invisible but they do real damage. They make equal strings compare as different, break code and spoil search.

Paste the text to see how many hidden characters it holds and to get a clean copy.

How to Use This Tool

  1. Enter or paste your input in the box or boxes above.
  2. Choose the options, if there are any.
  3. Press the button to run the tool.
  4. Read the result and use the copy button where one is shown.

How the Calculation Works

The tool scans every character and checks it against a list of code points. Zero-width characters are U+200B, U+200C, U+200D, U+2060, U+FEFF and the soft hyphen U+00AD, with the direction marks U+200E, U+200F, U+202A to U+202E and U+2066 to U+2069. Odd spaces are U+00A0, U+1680, U+2000 to U+200A, U+202F, U+205F and U+3000.

Worked Example

The text a​b c with a zero-width space and a non-breaking space becomes ab c after cleaning.

Common Uses

  • Fixing code copied from the web.
  • Cleaning data before import.
  • Preparing text for search.
  • Finding watermark characters.

Tips and Common Mistakes

  • Zero-width joiners are used in some emoji and scripts, so use the spaces-only mode if emoji break.
  • Keep a copy of the original.
  • Run the tool before comparing two texts.
  • Check the first result against a case you already know, so you can trust the tool for the rest.
  • Nothing you type leaves your device. The work is done by your browser, so it also works with a slow connection once the page has loaded.

Next, you may need the smart quotes converter, dash and hyphen normalizer, character counter, text repeater.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, stored or sent to any outside service.

Frequently Asked Questions

A character that takes no room on the screen but is still part of the text. It can break searches, code and password fields.
From web pages, chat apps, PDFs and word processors, and sometimes from AI tools or watermarks.
A space that stops a line from breaking at that point. In plain text it often causes trouble, so it is replaced by a normal space.
No. Letters, digits, punctuation and normal spaces stay as they are.

Disclaimer: results are calculated in your browser from the numbers you enter. Check important results before you rely on them for money, health, safety or legal decisions.